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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com
Search and Seizure (6th ed. 2025)
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-26,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 600,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 50,000 posts since 2003 (29,000 on WordPress as of 12/31/25) -
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Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012)
ACLU on privacy
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"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't."
—Me -
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."
–Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others) -
“I am still learning.”
—Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)). -
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud -
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848) -
"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced."
—Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984). -
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence."
—Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961). -
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987). -
"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today."
— Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting). -
"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property."
—Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765) -
"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment."
—United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) -
"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth."
—Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). -
"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable."
—Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987) -
"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."
—Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967) -
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded
rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
—United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)
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“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.”
—United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989) -
"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need."
—Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, Let it Bleed (album, 1969) -
"In Germany, they first came for the communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for
the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came
for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp] -
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.”
– John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper -
"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime."
—Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948) -
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
Website design by Wally Waller, Colorado Springs. 
Category Archives: Reasonable expectation of privacy
CA1: Arrest for DV was with PC despite disputed self-defense claim
Plaintiff was arrested for domestic violence, asserting he was defending himself. When the state charges were dropped, he sued the officer. His version of the facts do not unequivocally support self-defense or defense of premises, so the officer gets qualified … Continue reading
IL: No statutory right to REP in telephone call from police station
As to testimony about an overheard phone call from the police station: “While conceding that he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his phone conversation with his aunt, defendant maintains that such evidence was inadmissible because the police were … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: Private collection of LPNs violates no right of privacy
Private collection of LPNs by automated readers at parking lots violates no right of privacy. “Similarly, Plaintiffs assert only in conclusory terms how they have been affected by Defendants’ allegedly unauthorized use of their ALPR data. Plaintiffs allege no facts … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: No REP in Instagram postings, private or public
There was no reasonable expectation of privacy in defendant’s Instragram account postings and communications whether it was set private or not. United States v. Dixson, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 178371 (E.D.Mich. Sept. 20, 2021):
CT: State const. protects against dog sniffs outside motel room doors
There is a privacy interest against a drug dog being employed in a motel hallway looking for drugs in rooms under the Connecticut Constitution. The court had previously found one in apartment buildings. The citizenry wouldn’t accept free wheeling dog … Continue reading
NJ: Officer’s randomly looking up LPNs was not unreasonable
The officer’s randomly looking up LPNs for validity was not an unreasonable search. Defendant’s refusal to answer questions at that point only made it all worse because there was a basis for the stop and questioning. State v. Boston, 2021 … Continue reading
CA3: Carpenter just doesn’t apply to jail call recordings
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in jail calls admitted to prove a conspiracy, and Carpenter doesn’t apply. “While we need not decide how far Carpenter extends to other technologies, it does not apply to prison phone calls. Unlike … Continue reading
OH12: Second patdown in crotch area by male officer wasn’t unreasonable
A female officer patted this male defendant down, but she did not go around the crotch area. For officer safety, a male officer followed up and did. This was reasonable, and the contraband was found by plain feel. State v. … Continue reading
CA8: Usually no REP in car carried by car hauler even to owner, and here there was nothing showing REP
“During a safety inspection of a semi transporting three vehicles, an officer found about 40 pounds of meth in a Ford Explorer. Sierra-Serrano wants to suppress those drugs, arguing that the search violated the Fourth Amendment. But because Sierra did … Continue reading
CA11: Two on deadly force in shooting at cars: one reasonable, one a fact dispute
Officer shooting at a car driving toward him acted reasonably. “Officer Brown reasonably perceived that his life was in danger when the Pontiac shifted into reverse. Redwine had led the police on a high-speed chase through commercial and residential areas … Continue reading
MA: Review of old body cam recording in unrelated investigation was a separate invasion of privacy requiring SW
The use of a body camera in the home responding to a domestic disturbance was reasonable. However, reviewing the body cam recording for the purposes of a later and unrelated investigation without a search warrant was unreasonable. The second look … Continue reading
CA7: Pen register to track IP address in cyberattack investigation governed by third-party doctrine and not Carpenter
The use of a pen register order to track IP address in cyberattack investigation governed by third-party doctrine and not Carpenter. United States v. Soybel, 19-1936 (7th Cir. Sept. 8, 2021):
TX2: No REP in pawned property
Defendant pawned property that wasn’t his. The police went and picked it up within the period he could have redeemed. There was no reasonable expectation of privacy in bailed property at a pawnshop. Moreover, pawnshops are highly regulated businesses where … Continue reading
S.D.Ind.: IU’s CrimsonCard key card system has no REP in user movements
Indiana University’s CrimsonCard, a key card, that tracks movement into University buildings and facilities, does not carry a reasonable expectation of privacy. This case arose from an investigation of a hazing incident, and the University was corroborating alleged alibis. There … Continue reading
D.N.J.: No REP in one’s name
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in one’s name. Livingstone v. Hugo Boss Store, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165848 (D.N.J. Sept. 1, 2021). Officers working off duty security came upon decedent’s car at night parked across parking spaces, and … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Officer accessing Automated License Plate Reader database not unreasonable search
An Oakland officer’s accessing the local Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) database was not an illegal search nor a violation of the Fourth Amendment. That information helped to provide information to enable police to apply for a GPS tracking warrant … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Verizon voluntarily providing CSLI was not a 4A violation
Verizon voluntarily providing CSLI when it found out a search warrant was coming was not a Fourth Amendment violation. [This would also be inevitable discovery.] United States v. Searcy, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 153522 (W.D.Pa. Aug. 16, 2021). None of … Continue reading
CA2 en banc: Directions to a suspect don’t make a stop a search without a trespass or an intrusion into a REP
CA2 en banc, summary by the court (8-3): “This case presents what is, in some respects, a familiar question: whether a police officer’s pat-down search of a suspect for weapons was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Based on the facts … Continue reading
NJ Const. protects right of privacy in detainee’s private call from police station on unwarned recorded line
The state constitution protects against surreptitious recording of a telephone line from within a police station of a suspect where there was no warning and he was allowed into a room alone to make a call. State v. McQueen, 2021 … Continue reading